In São Paulo, Brazil, we find the former lawman Max Payne wallowing in his usual grizzled disposition towards life and the current state of affairs he finds himself in. Payne is providing his services as direct high-end security for the illustrious Branco family against any who mean them any harm.

Picking up nine years since the last entry to the series, Rockstar Vancouver plans to take Max to new grounds and deliver features, both familiar and new for the modern generation. However, with the absence of Sam Lake’s writing and a new studio taking the reins, one has to wonder if Max Payne is long for this world, one that’s been overwhelmingly saturated with shooters during his leave of absence.

In the not-so-distant past, the Max Payne franchise existed in a time where over the shoulder camera views and cover mechanics did not. So how does Max Payne 3 manage to implement these dynamics, alongside executable bullet time to create a new formula with a dose of familiarity? Well, it could definitely use some work.

Max Payne 3 picks up in the same vein of its predecessors, providing linear stage progression with action set pieces, and littered with several shoot out sets and enemy mobs -- large and small -- to encounter in between. Where the shooting starts to show flaws in its sloppy juxtaposition of shooting elements is the way the stages are designed themselves. The A.I. makes a great effort in attempting to flank you as mobs are cleared. And regardless of the difficulty you’re on, the difference is in the number of enemies. Coming from a tactical standpoint, the positioning of environmental objects to take cover behind is limited. The goons you’re taking down find a better advantage through aggressive flanking, and just from their sheer number of the enemies and available angles to shoot as opposed to yours.

The movement and evasion actions at your disposal are also sluggish. This is forgiven when applying the context it plays to Max’s age within the plot, but can be troublesome for combat when rolling out of the way actually covers less ground than running. The aliasing of aim alos suffers from the sluggish movement though this can be adjusted by accessing the aim sensitivity from the options menu, but the setting options still struggle to make up for the sluggish moevement. The flaw becomes more apparent when the hit detection from gunfire is liberal, so there are points where you took fire from cover that don't represent any clear blind spot to guard against. Mere grazing wounds from a bullet could mean your last breath before you even poke your head out. The frustration is again alleviated with the last man standing mechanic by making use of your painkillers for a last-ditch redemption shot towards the one who initiated your potential end. This mechanic, however, can again be impaired by the sloppy stage design of environmental fixtures, or structures leading to death without any way of countering back.

The bullet time also works to counter these issues well, and because of the improvements of shoulder aiming, becomes much more vital in your survival. This mechanic brings an awesome sense of tension to combat reminiscent of the older Payne titles. However, the cover combat hurts the experience when A.I. works to take cover and render your bullet time sequencing useless without the proper timing, which takes away from the excitement and replaces it with frustration.

The shoot dodge also makes a return, but unlike your first time using it in Max Payne 2, the end of it has a rather sluggish animation when getting back up. This eliminates the impulsive nature intended for the maneuver, as it often wields more risk than reward. Shoot dodging makes you hit the ground at the end of its stride, and depending on the circumstances, can assist you when landing behind other vantage objects for cover, or cause you to be fucked and dead center at the end of multiple lines of fire. Overall, the shooting is functional. But by the standards of several other third person shooters, it's a bit too flawed to be forgiven, though it doesn’t completely hamper the experience and it’s far from being broken. I found myself overlooking the lackluster shooting when I discovered the game's compelling story.

The plot progression dramatically changes from a film-noir tone the series is famous for to more of a gritty crime drama with a strong Scorsese flavor added for effect. The return of James McCaffrey into the voice role of Max definitely helps sell the portrayal of an aging Payne. All of the voice performances compliment the tone and direction of the plot and it’s pacing. The pacing of narrative within direct gameplay is handled very well, and balances transitioning between control and cinema fluidly and intuitively by slowing Max to a careful step when walking near the contextual area of plot progression to the next stage. This subtle action allows conscious decision of further exploration for ammunition or painkillers, along with clues and collectables not forcing you into a pan swipe that moves you to the next area without any room for thorough collecting.  

Where the story is engaging the writing isn’t as consistent in its quality, as there are moments of forced statements for the sake of exposition given the situation and the attempts at being edgy and witty make the delivery feel unnatural. The inner monologues of Max are more frequent than previous entries. Where there are some really clever scripted moments, it also suffers the same issue with his over use of Facsimiles to express his feelings (or anything for that matter). The moment to moment action helps make up for the misgivings behind the shooting design, with plot driven bullet time sequences and surrealistic conditions that romanticize the bullet time gimmick into something that isn‘t just a gameplay ability, but a fun approach to pacing; this helps bullet time stay away from the image of a stale gameplay gimmick.

The multiplayer is fairly standard, but the shooting is much more tolerable because of open stage layout as opposed to the linear corridor layout from the story mode. Between choosing from Jersey gangs or São Paulo commandos, the deathmatch dynamic fused with bullet time use and shoot dodging creates the same surprising appeal stealth killing and ledge/climb shooting did for Uncharted 3’s multiplayer, and in the same vain of Red Dead Redemption, will keep you coming back after the campaign.

Max Payne 3 suffers from flaws that ruined other games, but because of the engaging campaign and the successful emphasis of bullet time use with some modern renovation applied, the game is definitely worth a look (bearing that the right expectations are kept in mind). Max Payne 3 is simply more style than substance but manages to do just a good enough job.

Three.Five out of Five Hadokens